Some concerts you plan your whole summer around. Others land on a random Wednesday in the middle of the OC Fair, and those are the ones you end up talking about for weeks. July 29th was the second kind. Cypress Hill rolled into the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa with 35 years of hits behind them and absolutely no interest in taking it easy, and Los Angeles’ own Ozomatli got there first and set the bar high. Two bands from the same city, two completely different sounds, one crowd that never sat down. If you skipped this one because it was a school night, you missed the best party in Orange County.
The show was part of the OC Fair’s Toyota Summer Concert Series, which is still one of the best deals in Southern California—your concert ticket gets you into the Fair, so you can spend the afternoon eating things you would never eat anywhere else and then walk straight into an 8,000-seat amphitheatre. By the 7:30 downbeat, the place was packed, loose, and ready to go.
Ozomatli opened things up with the unique blend of genres that really makes for an amazing show. Three decades in, the LA collective still throws salsa, cumbia, hip-hop, funk, reggae, and rock into the same song and makes it sound effortless. They played great songs like “Tus Ojos,” “After Party,” “Como Ves,” and “O Le Le” that had people singing and dancing throughout the venue.
The horns did most of the heavy lifting, the rhythm section never let up, and the crowd figured out pretty quickly this was not a set to spend in the beer line. They closed out their set playing out into the crowd and interacting with the fans—drums, horns, and all, straight down the aisles. It is their signature move, and it still works every time.
Next was Cypress Hill, and the crowd erupted when they hit the stage. B-Real, Sen Dog, Eric Bobo, and DJ Muggs came out swinging and hit the crowd with one hit after another, getting everyone going with “Hand on the Pump,” “When the Shit Goes Down,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “Lowrider,” “A to the K,” “Boom Biddy Bye Bye,” and of course everyone loves “Dr. Greenthumb.”
The night was a stop on the Cypress Hill: Once Upon a Time in the Summer 2026 Tour, a run built around 35 years of the group, and the setlist reflected it—deep cuts sitting right next to the singles everyone in the amphitheatre could recite word for word. Bobo’s live percussion gave the whole thing a punch you do not get off the records, and B-Real’s voice is somehow exactly the same as it was on Black Sunday. As always, they put on one hell of a show and a party.
The best surprise came when they were joined on stage by Mellow Man Ace for a couple of songs. He is Sen Dog’s older brother and was there at the very beginning, back when the group went by a different name, and watching him trade verses on the Pacific stage was the kind of moment that reminds you how deep the roots of this thing actually go.
It was an amazing summer night, and you can’t go wrong with Cypress Hill in the middle of the week. Smoke in the air, horns still ringing, the whole crowd filing back out through the fairgrounds—if you get another shot at this bill, take it.
OZOMATLI
CYPRESS HILL
